


No Brakes

by yesdrizella



Category: RPF - Misc Actors
Genre: 1950s, Adultery, Backstory, Golden Age Hollywood, Infidelity, Kissing, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 21:33:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yesdrizella/pseuds/yesdrizella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James takes more risks than a human cannonball, and Paul humors him because that’s what good friends do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Brakes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vlieger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vlieger/gifts).



> Subtle and/or overt references to the following occur throughout: Pier Angeli (Jim's girlfriend), Jackie Witte (Paul's first wife), Lee Strasberg (director of the Actors Studio, which James and Paul both attended), the film _From Here to Eternity_ (specifically the beach kiss), and Paul's time in the Navy during World War II. Also, I use "Jim" instead of "James" since all of his friends called him Jim. Plus it eliminates the pesky possessive form of James. Thank you to Jules and to my best friend, T, for the beta.

The weekend forecast called for the kind of sun that cooked your scalp if you used enough pomade. “Hotter than Guam in ’44” is what Paul would say when the weather was especially brutal, but he can’t say that now, when he’s lazing with Jim in a backyard hammock, swapping stories about their wild youth and staring through the spiderweb of branches above their heads.

“…then my brakes went out, and I had to pump the pedal so the car would even slow down. I was nowhere near my exit, and I’m telling you, Paulie, your whole perspective on life changes when you cruise the freeway for half an hour without working brakes.”

Jim takes more risks than a human cannonball, and Paul humors him because that is what good friends do. A better friend would remind Jim that he wasn’t invincible, and a best friend would probably grab hold of Jim’s shoulders and shake till his glasses fell or his head popped off like a bottlecap. But he and Jim are only good friends, so when Jim laughs, he laughs, too.

Then Jim cranes his neck and, carefully, so as not to tip them over, collects a kiss from his mouth, then another. Paul lets him because Jim kisses like he performs, like he wants to inspire awe or jealousy from an audience.

And as they kiss, two thoughts occur to Paul. One concerns Jim’s mouth, flavored with black coffee and Chesterfields. His lips are softer now than they were six weeks ago, courtesy of the make-up department on Jim’s set. Paul feasts on Jim’s bottom lip and welcomes the change.

The other concerns a series of flashbacks to his days in the Navy. Months spent huddling with men who left behind new brides and Mom’s apple pie made him less judgmental and more curious. He kissed and loved and commiserated with some good ol’ boys from Des Moines, and he had always said, usually after a heavy petting session in the ship’s laundry room, that if the Japanese didn’t kill him, the loneliness would. The boys are now bone chips off the coast of Okinawa.

A tender, familiar ache blooms in Paul’s chest. At this moment, he wants to hold and be held. He grazes Jim’s cheek with his knuckles and murmurs, “Let’s move this inside.”

Jim reclines, his lips oscillating between purse and pout. “Whatsa matter? Think you’ll fall off and bump your noggin?”

“Maybe I just don’t want to share you.” Paul gestures to the back yard and the unobstructed view Jim’s neighbor would have from his-or-her second-story window.

“She’s a nice old widow who lives by herself. She might enjoy the show.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

Jim lingers. He stretches. Finally, he sets one foot on the ground. “Well, the guest is always right. Come on.”

Paul follows Jim indoors, bypassing some of Jim’s personal artwork. Crude sculptures on the living room floor, half-finished paintings on the walls of his bedroom. Paul wants to ask Jim why his pieces look incomplete, but Jim catches his mouth with a kiss that could set a man on fire. Paul quickly forgets his question, his breath, and the color of the sky outside.

They unbutton each other’s shirts as they fall onto the bed in a clichéd tangle of arms and legs. Paul slides a kiss trail down Jim’s neck and latches onto his collarbone, tasting the pleasant tartness of sweat and cologne. He cups one half of Jim’s backside, and when he squeezes, Jim yields as clearly as he demands, clutching a handful of Paul’s hair and shoving forward. Paul scrapes his teeth along the shell of Jim’s ear and whispers, “Slow down.”

Jim listens for once, the look in his eyes almost sheepish. “So when you wanted to come in here, it wasn’t for—”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Good. I didn’t want to see you naked, anyway.” Jim leans in, tracing the seam of Paul’s lips with his tongue before sealing their mouths completely.

They kiss and only kiss, and each brush of Jim’s lips feels atomic, like a nuclear explosion, the sweetest singe. Paul pauses to catch his breath, sighs when Jim nuzzles his nose. “I feel like Deborah Kerr in _From Here to Eternity_.” Jim appears bemused, like a dog trying to understand its master, so Paul clarifies. “I only mean that nobody kisses me the way you do.”

Jim is quiet, his expression unreadable for nearly a minute. Then the corner of his mouth twitches, and he very briskly, very seriously asks, “Nobody?”

Paul laughs. If Strasberg were watching, he would command Jim to repeat the line until he could play a man convincingly. “No, nobody.” Paul skims the back of Jim’s neck with his fingertips. He sniffs before clearing his throat. “I could use some air, though. Got any smokes?”

Jim fishes out a pack of Chesterfields from his nightstand drawer and offers one to Paul. He lights them both, then props his head on Paul’s shoulder. He takes the first drag, eyes narrowed in a parody of deep contemplation. “So I’ve got a problem.”

“I know, and I don’t judge you for it.”

Jim’s chortle is dry, like someone had twisted it into a rat tail and wrung out the excess mirth. “I don’t know how to tell her I love her.”

Instantly, Paul remembers the ‘her’ in Jim’s life, and hides a sudden pang of remorse when he remembers his own. “Does she know?”

“She does. But she deserves a grand gesture.”

Paul winds his arm around Jim, kneads his bicep. “Cut off your ear.”

“That did come to mind.”

Paul smiles only because it’s easy. “Give her a ring?”

“A ring doesn’t mean I love her. It means I bought her a ring.” Jim nurses his cigarette, inhales and exhales. “I do want to marry her, though.”

Paul thinks about his own marriage, a hasty commitment between two kids too young to understand what it meant. He flattens the wave of guilt and resentment that threaten to consume him, and instead offers a word of caution. “If you plan on marrying her, she’ll probably ask you to quit gambling on your life.”

“I know she will. I have yet to decide how to feel about that. After all…” Jim stops, not because he hesitates, but because he waits for the right words to come to him. When he has them, he speaks as if each word is important. “When my brakes went out, I knew I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t. I could not understand why at the time, but I recognize it now.”

Paul fills the silence that followed, even though he knows it is unnecessary. “Do you?”

“Everyone fears death because it can end your life at the precise moment when things start to get interesting. People live their lives in a hurry because they think the grim reaper is always chasing them. But death itself is a lark. It’s the best sleep you will ever have.” He stops again, but this time Paul can tell it’s for dramatic effect. “More people need to welcome death. Then they would accept their limitations. They would slow down and invest their time in the things that really matter to them. Flowers, pottery, boring evenings at home. My brakes went out, and I was fine with that because everything I’ve done with my life matters to me.” Jim draws air into his chest, then expels it. “And once you realize that your life, and everything you do with it, is valuable, the world will be a better place.”

Paul watches Jim stub out his cigarette. He considers the possibility that Jim is an angel. Not a Christian cherub, but a messenger who arrives from an unearthly plane to deliver news the world needs to hear. Or perhaps Jim is a revolutionary, the strong-willed and empathetic leader of an oppressed class, destined to die before his time.

Paul attempts to form a response, but all he can say is, “Sounds like you’ve given this a lot of thought, Jim.”

Jim turns toward him, eyes bluer than the waters of Saipan. He smiles but does not reply.

**Author's Note:**

> I researched their likes, dislikes, and their pasts as well as I could. Hopefully I haven't made a glaring error somewhere, but if I did, feel free to send me a PM. I really loved the prompt, I was happy to receive it, and I hope vlieger enjoys it. Thanks for taking the time to read my fic!


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